Effective Meetings – Getting Back to Basics

PROBLEM

Have you had this meeting experience?  

You are in a meeting getting ready for a release (product launch, production fix, new feature implementation, etc.…) that same evening and someone says they were unaware of the targeted launch so the release has to be stopped?  What’s worse is that you know this person was in all of the meetings where this was discussed so you ask the project manager for the minutes of the previous meetings only to find that none were produced.  Now you and your colleagues are in the position of defending a release, obtaining additional approvals, conducting extra meetings and more, all to satisfy someone who was in your meetings but clearly was not paying attention.

All of this could have been avoided if the meetings were run differently.  

In today’s fast-paced society it has become an acceptable practice to allow everyone to bring their laptops and phones to the meeting and to allow the attendees to multi-task during the meeting.  This causes lack of focus and more and more commonly miscommunication even though everyone is in the same room (virtual or real).   I pose to you that no one person is so important (with the exception of a few high-ranking government officials) that they can’t dedicate 30 minutes of their time to be fully engaged in your meeting.  More often than not, the person is afraid to delegate, is not interested or has not bought into the topic of your meeting or is so used to doing it all that they don’t know how to let go even for a short period of time.

Another problem is that it is now easier than ever to multi-task during meetings that are held by conference call where all the participants are in different locations. If you think that just because the meeting host can’t see you, you can do many other things at the same time as participate in the meeting, think again.  How many times during a conference call do you hear someone say, “can you repeat that question? or “no one told me about this”.  Or, how many times have you received an email from another participant in the same meeting but on a completely different topic?  This usually means that the other person was multi-tasking and not fully listening to the conversation at hand.  

SOLUTION

To solve this problem and to have more effective meetings we need to get back to basics.  This does not mean add more meetings to everyone’s day but rather to have fewer meetings with more focus.

The only person in the meeting who should have their laptop open is the person taking the meeting minutes.  All other participants should be fully engaged in the conversation which, by virtue of focus, can actually help the meeting end in 30 minutes instead of the traditional one hour.  

Here are some suggestions for an effective meeting:

1. Start and end the meeting on time.  You’ll be surprised at how much participation you get in your meetings if you follow this one rule.
2. Take roll call at the beginning of the meeting.  This way everyone knows with whom they are interacting/communicating.
3. Have a clear agenda and keep the meeting topics to 5 items or less.  Any more than 5 and you will lose the focus of the meeting as well as the participants
4. Don’t go over a topic a second time for a late comer
    – If there is time at the end of the meeting you can bring that person up-to-speed or offer to have a 5-minute call with that individual after the meeting ends.
5. If a topic requires more than 7 minutes of conversation stop the conversation and schedule a separate meeting for that topic alone.
    – This separate meeting should be no more than 30 minutes in duration and should be attended by a subset of the original meeting participants.  Not everyone needs to hear the conversation especially if it does not directly affect their role.
6. Don’t allow too many examples of the same problem.  Once everyone understands the problem no more examples are needed even if many more people experienced the same problem.   

All Meetings should have the following components at a minimum:

Agenda

• Facilitator
• Scribe (can be same as facilitator)
• Location and conference call number
• Time meeting will begin
• Duration of meeting
• Duration of each topic (optional)
• Clearly defined topics for conversation
• List of invited attendees

Focused Participants

• Only those who are going to get or provide value should attend the meeting.
• Those who just want to hear the conversation or be aware of any decisions should receive the meeting minutes

Action Items

• Clear definition of expectation
• Target date for completion
• Clear owner

Note: Many people like to put a team name down but this can make it unclear who is actually responsible as well as dilute the responsibility of action owner.  

• Important – To make sure everyone understands all actions taken from the meeting the list of items should be read to all meeting participants before the meeting is adjourned.

Meeting Minutes

• Facilitator and Scribe
• List of those who attended the meeting
• Concise notes containing high level details of all important conversations and all decisions made during the meeting
• List of all action items, owners and target completion dates
• Should be distributed within 24-48 hours of the meeting

For more information on how to run effective meetings contact us at info@eaglridgeconsulting.com